Part 7

Mr. Francis Darwin, in a paper on “Growth Curvatures in Plants,” says of the biologist, Sachs, who had made researches in the same phenomena: “He speaks, too, of _custom_ or _use_, _building up_ the specialised ‘instinct’ for certain curvatures. (Sachs’ ‘Arbeiten,’ 1879.) These are expressions consistent with our present views.”—(Presidential Address to the Biological Section of the British Association, 1891.)

In the same section was also read a paper by Francis Darwin and Dorothea F. N. Pertz, “On the _Artificial_ Production of Rhythm in Plants,” in which were detailed results very apposite to this “growing of a spurious function.”

8.—“... _almost natural use the morbid mode appears_.”

“So true is it that unnatural generally only means uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.”—J. S. Mill (“The Subjection of Women,” p. 22).

XXVII.

1.—“_Grievous the hurt_ ...”

Buckle notes one of the many incidental evil results in his “Common Place Book,” Art. 2133:—

“It has been remarked that in our climate women are more frequently affected with insanity than men, and it has been considered very unfavourable to recovery if they should be worse at the time of menstruation, or have their catamenia in very small or immoderate quantities.” (Paris and Fonblanque’s “Medical Jurisprudence,” Vol. I., p. 327).

5.—“... _reintegrate in frame and mind_.”

“Thus then you have first to mould her physical frame, and then, as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind with all knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural instincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love.”—John Ruskin (“Of Queens’ Gardens,” p. 154).

XXVIII.

5, 6.—“... _given in our hand, Is power the evil hazard to command_.”

“That which is thoughtlessly credited to a non-existent intelligence should really be claimed and exercised by the human race. It is ourselves who should direct our affairs, protecting ourselves from pain, assisting ourselves, succouring and rendering our lives happy. We must do for ourselves what superstition has hitherto supposed an intelligence to do for us.... These things speak with a voice of thunder. From every human being whose body has been racked with pain; from every human being who has suffered from accident or disease; from every human being drowned, burned, or slain by negligence, there goes up a continually increasing cry louder than the thunder. An awe-inspiring cry dread to listen to, against which ears are stopped by the wax of superstition and the wax of criminal selfishness. These miseries are your doing, because you have mind and thought and could have prevented them. You can prevent them in the future. You do not even try.”—R. Jefferies (“The Story of My Heart,” pp. 149 _et seq._).

_Id._... “From one philosophical point of view, that of Du Prel, the experiments are already regarded as proving that the soul is an organising as well as a thinking power.... Bernheim saw an apoplectic paralysis rapidly improved by suggestion.... The more easily an idea can be established in the subject, the quicker a therapeutic result can be induced.... I think that hardly any of the newest discoveries are so important to the art of healing, apart from surgery, as the study of suggestion.... Now that it has been proved that even organic changes can be caused by suggestion, we are obliged to ascribe a much greater importance to mental influences than we have hitherto done.”—Dr. Albert Moll (“Hypnotism,” pp. 122, 318, 320, 325, 327).

_Id._... “It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with one who, standing where I now stand, in what was then a thickly-peopled and fashionable part of London, should have broached to our ancestors the doctrine which I now propound to you—that all their hypotheses were alike wrong; that the plague was no more, in their sense, Divine judgment, than the fire was the work of any political, or of any religious, sect; but that they were themselves the authors of both plague and fire, and that they must look to themselves to prevent the recurrence of calamities, to all appearance so peculiarly beyond the reach of human control.... We, in later times, have learned somewhat of Nature, and partly obey her. Because of this partial improvement of our natural knowledge and of that fractional obedience, we have no plague; because that knowledge is still very imperfect and that obedience yet incomplete, typhus is our companion and cholera our visitor. But it is not presumptuous to express the belief that, when our knowledge is more complete and our obedience the expression of our knowledge, London will count her centuries of freedom from typhus and cholera as she now gratefully reckons her two hundred years of ignorance of that plague which swooped upon her thrice in the first half of the seventeenth century.”—T. H. Huxley (“On Improving Natural Knowledge”).

And the pestilent malady from which woman specially still suffers is as definitely the result of man’s ignorant or thoughtless misdoing, and is as indubitably amenable to rectification, as the plague of the bye-gone ages, or the typhus and cholera of the present.

8.—“... _pain both prompts and points escape_.”

“All evil is associated more or less closely with pain ... and pain of every kind is so repugnant to the human organism, that it is no sooner felt than an effort is made to escape from it.... Alongside of the evolution of evil there has ever been a tendency towards the _elimination_ of evil.... The highest intellectual powers of the greatest men have for their ultimate object the mitigation of evil, and the final elimination of it from the earth.”—Richard Bithell (“The Creed of a Modern Agnostic,” p. 103).

XXIX.

1.—“... _woman shall her own redemption gain_.”

In the greatest depth of their meaning remain true the words of Olive Schreiner: “He who stands by the side of woman cannot help her; she must help herself.”

_Id._... “Nothing is clearer than that woman must lead her own revolution; not alone because it is hers, and that no other being can therefore have her interest in its achievement, but because it is for a life whose highest needs and rights—those to be redressed in its success—lie above the level of man’s experiences or comprehension. Only woman is sufficient to state woman’s claims and vindicate them.”—Eliza W. Farnham (“Woman,” Vol. I., p. 308).

(See also Notes to XLVI. 7 and LVIII. 1.)

2.—“_Instructed by the sting of bootless pain_.”

“Toutes les fonctions du corps humain, sauf l’enfantement, sont autant de plaisirs. Dès que la douleur surgit, la nature est violée. La douleur est d’origine humaine. Un corps malade ou a violé les lois de la nature, ou bien souffre de la violation de la loi d’un de ses semblables. La douleur par elle-même est donc le meilleur diagnostic pour le médecin.... Entre la loi de la nature et la violation de cette loi, il n’y a que désordres, douleurs et ruines.... La maladie ne vient pas de la nature, elle n’y est même pas. Elle n’est que la violation d’une des lois de la nature. Dès qu’une de ces lois est violée, la douleur arrive et vous dit qu’une loi vient d’être enfreinte. S’il est temps encore, le mal peut être amoindri, expulsé, chassé.... La maladie n’est donc que le résultat de la violation d’une loi naturelle.... La science et la mécanique du corps humain, c’est l’art de vivre d’après les lois de la nature, c’est la certitude que pas un médecin ne possède contre la violation d’une de ces lois un remède autre que d’y rentrer le plus tôt possible.... Chaque fois que l’homme s’efforcera de suivre la loi de la nature, il chassera devant soi une centaine de maladies.”—Dr. Alexandre Weill (“Lois et Mystères de l’Amour,” pp. 41, 91, 24, 85, 83).

3, 4.—“_With Nature ever helpful to retrieve The injury we heedlessly achieve._”

“Thus, if we could, by preaching our pet ideal, or in any other way induce one generation of women to turn to a new pursuit, we should have accomplished a step towards bending all future womanhood in the same direction.”—Frances Power Cobbe (Essay: “The Final Cause of Woman”).

See also Note XXIII., 4.

6.—“_Already guerdon rich in hope is shown_.”

“He (Mr. Frederic Harrison) says—‘All women, with few exceptions, are subject to functional interruption absolutely incompatible with the highest forms of continuous pressure.’ This assertion I venture most emphatically to deny. The actual period of child-birth apart, the ordinarily healthy woman is as fit for work every day of her life as the ordinarily healthy man. Fresh air, exercise, suitable clothing and nourishing food, added to the habitual temperance of women in eating and drinking, have brought about a marvellously good result in improving their average health.”—Mrs. Fawcett (_Fortnightly Review_, Nov. 1891).

(See also Note LX., 8.)

8.—“_The sage physician, she_ ...”

Not only “sage” physician, but “brave” physician; for brave indeed has been the part she has had to bear against male professional prejudice and jealousy, opposition from masculine vested interests, virulent abuse and even personal violence. So recently as 1888, Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake has to report concerning the medical education of women, that:—

“The first difficulty lies in some remaining jealousy and ill-will towards medical women on the part of a section (constantly diminishing, as I believe) of the medical profession itself. Some twenty years ago the professional prejudice was so deep and so widely spread that it constituted a very formidable obstacle, but it has been steadily melting away before the logic of facts; and now is, with a few exceptions, rarely to be found among the leaders of the profession, nor indeed among the great majority of the rank and file, as far as can be judged by the personal experience of medical women themselves. Unfortunately, it seems strongest just where it has least justification, viz., among the practitioners who devote themselves chiefly to midwifery, and to the special diseases of women. The Obstetrical Society is, so far as I know, still of the same mind as when, in 1874, they excluded Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, a distinguished M.D. of Paris, from their membership; and the Soho Square Hospital for Women has never revoked its curt refusal to allow me to enter its doors, when, in 1878, I proposed to take advantage of the invitation issued in its report to all practitioners who were specially interested in the cases for which the hospital is reserved. Sometimes this jealousy takes a sufficiently comic form. For instance, I received for two successive years a lithographed circular inviting me by name to send to the _Lancet_ the reports of interesting cases that might occur in my dispensary practice, but when I wrote in response to this supposed offer of professional fellowship, I received by next post a hurried assurance from the editor that it was all a mistake, and that, in fact, the _Lancet_ could not stoop to record medical experiences, however interesting, if they occurred in the practice of the inferior sex! Probably it will not require many more years to make this sort of thing ridiculous, even in the eyes of those who are now capable of such puerilities.

“The second obstacle lies in the continued exclusion of women from the majority of our Universities, and from the English Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. Here also the matter may be left to the growth of public opinion as regards those existing bodies which do not depend upon the public purse; but it is time that Parliament should refuse supplies to those bodies whose sense of justice cannot be otherwise awakened, and it is certainly the duty of Government to see that no new charter is granted without absolute security for equal justice to students of both sexes.”—Sophia Jex-Blake, M.D. (_Nineteenth Century_, Nov., 1887).

See also Note LVII., 1, and LVIII, 1.

_Id._... Progress is indeed being made, surely, yet slowly, for Mrs. Fawcett has still necessity to reiterate, four years afterwards:—

“Make her a doctor, put her through the mental discipline and the physical toil of the profession; charge her, as doctors are so often charged, with the health of mind and body of scores of patients, she remains womanly to her finger tips, and a good doctor in proportion as the truly womanly qualities in her are strongly developed. Poor women are very quick to find this out as patients. Not only from the immediate neighbourhood of the New Hospital for Women, where all the staff are women doctors, but also from the far East of London do they come, because ‘the ladies,’ as they call them, are ladies, and show their poor patients womanly sympathy, gentleness, and patience, womanly insight and thoughtfulness in little things, and consideration for their home troubles and necessities. It is not too much to say that a woman can never hope to be a good doctor unless she is truly and really a womanly woman. And much the same thing may be said with regard to fields of activity not yet open to women.”—Mrs. Fawcett (_Fortnightly Review_, Nov., 1891).

_Id._—“... _saviour of her sex_.”

Bebel says:—“Women doctors would be the greatest blessing to their own sex. The fact that women must place themselves in the hands of men in cases of illness or of the physical disturbances connected with their sexual functions frequently prevents their seeking medical help in time. This gives rise to numerous evils, not only for women, but also for men. Every doctor complains of this reserve on the part of women, which sometimes becomes almost criminal, and of their dislike to speak freely of their ailments, even after they have made up their minds to consult a doctor. This is perfectly natural, the only irrational thing about it is the refusal of men, and especially of doctors, to recognise how legitimate the study of medicine is for women.” (“Woman,” Walther’s translation, p. 131.)

_Id._... “As I am alluding to my own experience in this matter, I may perhaps be allowed to say how often in the same place I have been struck with the _contingent_ advantages attendant on the medical care by women of women; how often I have seen cases connected with stories of shame or sorrow to which a woman’s hand could far more fittingly minister, and where sisterly help and counsel could give far more appropriate succour than could be expected from the average young medical man, however good his intentions. Perhaps we shall find the solution of some of our saddest social problems, when educated and pure-minded women are brought more constantly in contact with their sinning and suffering sisters, in other relations as well as those of missionary effort.”—Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake (Essay: “Medicine as a Profession for Women”).

XXX.

1.—“_With purer phase_ ...”

A noted specialist in this matter, Dr. Tilt, “basing his conclusions on his own unpublished observations, and on those already made public by M. Brierre de Boismont and Dr. Rawn,” has declared what is indeed a generally accepted proposition, that “luxurious living and habits render menstruation precarious, while this function is retarded by out-door labour and less sophisticated habits.” (“Proceedings of British Association,” 1850, p. 135; “On the Causes which Advance or Retard the Appearance of First Menstruation in Women,” by E. J. Tilt, M.D., &c., &c.)

4.—“... _weakness_ ...”

It is to be carefully kept in mind that this “weakness” (Scriptural, “sickness,” Lev. xx., 18) is strictly a pathological incident; while maternity is truly a physiological one; the male false physicists seem in their mental and clinical attitude to have aimed to precisely reverse this definition. (See also Note XXIII., 8, and XXVI., 6.)

5, 6.—To the fact related in these two lines there is testimony in nearly every book connected with the subject; and doubtless numerous instances never come to light, owing to the very natural reticence pointed out in Note XXIX., 8. The improved condition reported by Mrs. Fawcett (Note XXIX., 6) is hence more readily verified by women practitioners; and the writer has had detailed personal experiences of perfect health and maternity being co-existent with little or no appearance of the menses in the case of women whose names, if published, would be indubitable guarantee for their accuracy and veracity.

7.—“_Not to neglectful man to greatly care_ ...”

The Report of the British Association for 1850, in summarising the paper above referred to (Note 1), says of Dr. Tilt that, “in discussing what he calls the intrinsic causes which have been supposed to influence menstruation, his observations are rather of a suggestive character, for he considers such causes highly problematical and requiring further investigation.” Dr. Tilt rightly emphasises the question as “a matter equally interesting to the physician, the philosopher, and the statesman; and it behoves them to know that this epoch (of menstruation) varies under the influence of causes which for the most part have been insufficiently studied.” But the negligence or carelessness reprobated in the verse has again supervened.

Buckle says, concerning this same paper of Dr. Tilt’s: “We take shame to ourselves for not having sooner noticed this very interesting and in some respects very important work; the author unknown,” (?) “and yet the book has gone through two editions, though written on a subject ignorantly supposed to be going on well. That women can be satisfied with their state shows their deterioration. That they can be satisfied with knowing nothing, &c.” (_sic._) (“Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works,” Vol. I., p. 381.)

The whole passage seems somewhat incoherent, and is unfinished as above, as if left by Mr. Buckle for further consideration. The last two remarks as to women are certainly not written with his usual justice; when we remember how assiduously men have striven to prevent woman’s pursuit of physiological knowledge, especially as applied to her own person, it is manifest that the blame for woman’s ignorance, or her presumed “satisfaction” therewith, is more fittingly to be reproached to man than to her.

XXXI.

1.—“_Her intellect alert_ ...”

“_Intellectus prelucit voluntati._”—“Intellect carries the light before the will.”—Cardinal Manning (_Review of Reviews_, Vol. V., p. 135).

5, 6.—“... _body still is supple unto mind, By dint of soul is fleshly form inclined_.”

Reflecting Plato’s teaching, our second worthy Elizabethan poet has said:—

“Every spirit as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in. For of the Soul the Body form doth take: For Soul is form, and doth the Body make.”

And in our own day, Charles Kingsley says, in serious sportiveness: “The one true doctrine of this wonderful fairy tale is, that your soul makes your body, just as a snail makes its shell.” And again: “You must know and believe that people’s souls make their bodies just as a snail makes its shell.... I am not joking, my little man; I am in serious, solemn earnest.”—(“The Water Babies,” Chaps. III. and IV.)

And Elizabeth Barrett Browning (“Aurora Leigh,” Book III.)—

“... the soul Which grows within a child makes the child grow.”

The physiologists and psychologists, as is not unusual, tardily follow in the wake of the poets. At the International Congress of Experimental Psychology, London, 1892, “Professor Delbœuf said that at all times the mind of man had been capable of influencing the body, but it was only in recent times that this action had been scientifically put in evidence.”—(_Times_, August 3rd, 1892.)

And Dr. Albert Moll, of Berlin, had written the year previously, that—“When the practical importance of mental influences becomes more generally recognised, physicians will be obliged to acknowledge that psychology is as important as physiology. Psychology and psychical therapeutics will be the basis of a rational treatment of neuroses. The other methods must group themselves around this; it will be the centre, and no longer a sort of Cinderella of science, which now admits only the influence of the body on the mind, and not that of the mind on the body.”—(“Hypnotism,” p. 328.) See also Note XXVIII., 5.

XXXII.

2.—“... _woo the absent curse_.”

Even Raciborski condemns this common error of treatment:—“... quand les jeunes filles de cette catégorie paraissent souffrantes, quel que soit le caractère des souffrances, on est disposé à les attribuer au défaut du flux menstruel, on le regrette, on l’invoque, et l’on tente tout pour le provoquer. Ces idées sont aujourd’hui encore très profondément enracinées dans le public, et sont souvent la cause des entraves au traitement rationnel proposé par les médecins.”—(Traité, &c., ed. 1868, p. 377.)

And Mrs. E. B. Duffey very sensibly says:—

“Nature ... is very easily perverted: and the girl who begins by imagining she is ill or ought to be at such times will end by being really so.” (“No Sex in Education,” Philadelphia, 1874, p. 79.)

3.—“... _counter-effort_ ...”

“Forel and many others mention that there are certain popular methods of slightly retarding menstruation. In one town many of the young women tie something round their little finger if they wish to delay menstruation for a few days in order to go to a ball, &c. The method is generally effectual, but when faith ceases, the effect also ceases.”—Dr. Albert Moll (“Hypnotism,” p. 226).

Before quitting this special subject it may be well to remark that little more than the fringe is here indicated of an enormous mass of evidence which affords more than presumptive confirmation and support for the position here taken in the whole question of this “abnormal habit.”

4.—“... _custom_ ...”—See Note XXIV., 6.

XXXIII.

2.—“... _newer vigour to the brain_.”

“It is well-known that every organ of the body and, therefore, also the brain, requires for its full development and, consequently, for the development of its complete capability of performance, exercise and persistent effort. That this is and has been the case for thousands of years in a far less degree in woman than in man, in consequence of her defective training and education, will be denied by no one.” So says the learned biologist Büchner.—(“Man,” Dallas’s translation, p. 206.)

And Bebel also declares:—“The brain must be regularly used and correspondingly nourished, like any other organ, if its faculties are to be fully developed.”—(“Woman,” Walther’s translation, p. 124.)

Dr. Emanuel Bonavia, in the course of an able reply to a somewhat shallow recent disquisition by Sir James Crichton Browne, says:—

“From various sources we have learnt that the brain tissue, like every other tissue, will _grow_ by exercise, and diminish, or degenerate and atrophy by disuse. Keep your right arm tied up in a sling for a month, and you will then be convinced how much it has lost by disuse. Then anatomists might perhaps be able to say—Lo! and behold! the muscles of your right arm have a less specific gravity than those of your left arm; that the nerves and blood-vessels going to those muscles are smaller, and that, _therefore_, the right arm cannot be the equal of the left, and must have a different function!